


Therapy of Complications

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love, teenaged angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feelings are hard. Especially when you're scared that coming clean about them to your best bro would be grounds to ruin your friendship forever. </p><p>In which John loves Dave, but is too worried about the consequences to tell him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapy of Complications

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something where John is in love with Dave and keeping it secret, instead of the other way around, because a lot of people write it with Dave having the unrequited feelings. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Dave Strider is your best friend in the world right now, probably. 

And you don’t say “probably” like in a way that implies Dave is anything less than your best friend because he’s totally not. Sure, he can be kind of a insufferable douche with all his cool dude posturing and posing. And sometimes he’s kind of annoying, especially when he starts going on and on about his lame raps or his weird dead things or those long and winding metaphors that even he loses track of after awhile. It sometimes bothers you that he likes to play everything off as done for irony’s sake, but most of the time its funny and kind of endearing to you. You still make fun of him for it, like you make fun of nearly everything else about him. But that’s okay because he gives it right back to you—his favorite way being making up the most godawful nicknames for you. Eggs, Leggo my Eggo, Your Eggsellency—you try to keep Dave away from mixing egg puns with your last name as often as possible because oh God, are they bad. Even for him. 

 So in any case, it’s even, and the both of you know that the name-calling and shit-talking is only in good fun and all anyway. 

Nah, the only reason that you say “probably” is that as of late your friendship with Dave, at least from your side, has started to change into something more. Yep— _that_ kind of something more. The kind that gets a dude to the point where he’s standing outside the leading lady’s window with a Peter Gabriel-blasting boombox over his head. Heart right out there on the line and all that romantic sensitive stuff.  

You’d probably have already done that if Dave didn’t live in dumb old Texas. Such an awesome and romantic homage doesn’t really have the same effect over webcam, you imagine. 

And—well. There’s a couple of reasons other than the distance that have prevented you from going all Cusack on Dave. 

And that is that, you’re pretty sure that either A—Dave has absolutely no idea about your feelings— or B—Dave knows about your feelings but doesn’t really say anything because he doesn’t feel the same way and doesn’t want to ruin your friendship—is true. 

You’ll admit it! You’re kind of scared. It’s not something you’d ever say aloud to anyone without some major coaxing, but you’re kind of really scared and nervous when it comes to this kind of relationship deal. 

So really as much as it sucks to be scared and not able to say anything to him you feel like it would be worse if he knew. Because, well, you’re kind of also afraid that your friendship with be Ruined Forever if he found out. You know that’s kind of a huge hyperbole but you really don’t want to even chance losing Dave. 

Besides you like the fact that he trusts you so much. You like being needed by him. If you tell, maybe he’ll be weirded out, or feel betrayed, or worse. You’ll be usurped from your position as best bro  and official feelings confidant by Rose, or Kanaya, or Sollux, or Terezi and that’s the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to you. You need him to need you. 

If it isn’t obvious enough you think about Dave a hell of a lot, though most of the time when you think about Dave, you’re either worrying about him or imagining what it would be like to be with him. Above all you really just want him to be happy, and if someday maybe he realizes he could be happy with you, then that’s okay. And if he realizes that he could be happy with someone who isn’t you, then that’s also okay. It’s still not _okay_ but it’s—it’s okay okay. In that you could deal with yourself not being all right as long as Dave was all right or—something. 

Right now as far as you know making Dave happy consists only of being his best bro and joking around and shitting on him and his dumb hobbies and sometimes supporting him when he’s down or when he’s got love problems of his own.

Those are the hardest—you can usually take Dave being mopey or sad because of money or Bro-related reasons, even though it still sucks. But when Dave starts talking about the new little hottie or hunk he just spotted today, your stomach invariably goes to hang downtown with your colon. 

And it’s even worse when that hunk or hottie also notices Dave, and there’s the inevitable sinking feeling when Dave goes on a first date with him or her and then you have to be happy and supportive and tell him to “get some” and remember the old “no glove no love” rule and all that. And of course the king’s crown of bad feelings all around—when Dave and his squeeze split over something and you have to talk him down off the ledge. Which is a mostly figurative saying but was  one time all too literal. 

That had been a long night. Even to this day you weren’t sure if Dave had been serious or had just been acting overdramatic after breaking up with, in Dave’s own words, “a duplicitous and two-faced dickwaffle” but it’d scared you pretty hard. After you’d made for sure that he was okay, you’d nearly heaved out your dinner all over your keyboard. 

Sometimes you really do wonder if it’s worth it, to care about Dave this much. Sometimes, you wonder what would happen if you just blocked him from Pesterchum, deleted his texts, ignored his calls—just completely took him and all the stress he gives you out of your life. Just forget about him and your feelings for him and move on, because sometimes it hurts so bad, like you have one of Dave’s dead lizard fetuses rotting away in the pit of your stomach. But you can’t—even on the days when you’re determined not to talk to him, the moment he messages you you have this weird compulsion to respond. Maybe you’re an addict—you just can’t live without Striderhol. 

Deep down, you know you just want to be the one who can fix Dave, the one to be there for him and hold him and kiss him and be _close_ to him whenever he feels like he’s broken and alone. But that’s not your job, not right now at least. You’re the damn that keeps the flood of feelings from washing away Striderville, Home of the World’s Finest Frustratingly Attractive Douchecanoes. You’re the bread that keeps his peanut butter, apple, and Captain Crunch sandwich together. 

You’re the one who sat and listened when he had a little crush on Jade back in the day and occasionally quipped to you about how he thought she was kind of cute. Back then you hadn’t really liked him that much but it’d still kind of wigged you out that Dave thought your half-sister was cute and all. In the end you’d convinced him it was totally weird and that if him and Jade got married they’d be like, cousins or something, and eventually he’d agreed and gotten over her. You think. At least you hope so ‘cause she’s been getting pretty serious with Karkat lately and you don’t want Dave’s heart to be broken like that or anything. 

Though, right now you don’t really know the status of Dave’s heart. He and Terezi had a brief thing going, but they wound up parting ways—mutually, thank God. From his messages, he seems to be chugging along pretty all right since then. Sometimes it seems like there’s something bothering him, but whenever you hint that he can tell you he just changes the subject or descends into another long-winded anecdote until you spam the chat with enough tentacle-inflation-furry-vore porn to shut him up. 

But, hey, whenever he needs to tell you about it, you’ll be there for him. 

Because thats what good best friend do, right?


End file.
